DCFG: Diverse Cross-Channel Fine-Grained Feature Learning and Progressive Fusion Siamese Tracker for Thermal Infrared Target Tracking

To address the challenge of capturing highly discriminative features in ther-mal infrared (TIR) tracking, we propose a novel Siamese tracker based on cross-channel fine-grained feature learning and progressive fusion. First, we introduce a cross-channel fine-grained feature learning network that employs masks and suppression coefficients to suppress dominant target features, en-abling the tracker to capture more detailed and subtle information. The net-work employs a channel rearrangement mechanism to enhance efficient in-formation flow, coupled with channel equalization to reduce parameter count. Additionally, we incorporate layer-by-layer combination units for ef-fective feature extraction and fusion, thereby minimizing parameter redun-dancy and computational complexity. The network further employs feature redirection and channel shuffling strategies to better integrate fine-grained details. Second, we propose a specialized cross-channel fine-grained loss function designed to guide feature groups toward distinct discriminative re-gions of the target, thus improving overall target representation. This loss function includes an inter-channel loss term that promotes orthogonality be-tween channels, maximizing feature diversity and facilitating finer detail capture. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our proposed tracker achieves the highest accuracy, scoring 0.81 on the VOT-TIR 2015 and 0.78 on the VOT-TIR 2017 benchmark, while also outperforming other methods across all evaluation metrics on the LSOTB-TIR and PTB-TIR benchmarks.

FGSGT: Saliency-Guided Siamese Network Tracker Based on Key Fine-Grained Feature Information for Thermal Infrared Target Tracking

Thermal infrared (TIR) images typically lack detailed features and have low contrast, making it challenging for conventional feature extraction models to capture discriminative target characteristics. As a result, trackers are often affected by interference from visually similar objects and are susceptible to tracking drift. To address these challenges, we propose a novel saliency-guided Siamese network tracker based on key fine-grained feature infor-mation. First, we introduce a fine-grained feature parallel learning convolu-tional block with a dual-stream architecture and convolutional kernels of varying sizes. This design captures essential global features from shallow layers, enhances feature diversity, and minimizes the loss of fine-grained in-formation typically encountered in residual connections. In addition, we propose a multi-layer fine-grained feature fusion module that uses bilinear matrix multiplication to effectively integrate features across both deep and shallow layers. Next, we introduce a Siamese residual refinement block that corrects saliency map prediction errors using residual learning. Combined with deep supervision, this mechanism progressively refines predictions, ap-plying supervision at each recursive step to ensure consistent improvements in accuracy. Finally, we present a saliency loss function to constrain the sali-ency predictions, directing the network to focus on highly discriminative fi-ne-grained features. Extensive experiment results demonstrate that the pro-posed tracker achieves the highest precision and success rates on the PTB-TIR and LSOTB-TIR benchmarks. It also achieves a top accuracy of 0.78 on the VOT-TIR 2015 benchmark and 0.75 on the VOT-TIR 2017 benchmark.

RAMCT: Novel Region-adaptive Multi-channel Tracker with Iterative Tikhonov Regularization for Thermal Infrared Tracking

Correlation filter (CF)-based trackers have gained significant attention for their computational efficiency in thermal infrared (TIR) target tracking. However, ex-isting methods struggle with challenges such as low-resolution imagery, occlu-sion, background clutter, and target deformation, which severely impact tracking performance. To overcome these limitations, we propose RAMCT, a region-adaptive sparse correlation filter tracker that integrates multi-channel feature opti-mization with an adaptive regularization strategy. Firstly, we refine the CF learn-ing process by introducing a spatially adaptive binary mask, which enforces spar-sity in the target region while dynamically suppressing background interference. Secondly, we introduce generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD) and propose a novel GSVD-based region-adaptive iterative Tikhonov regularization method. This enables flexible and robust optimization across multiple feature channels, improving resilience to occlusion and background variations. Thirdly, we propose an online optimization strategy with dynamic discrepancy-based pa-rameter adjustment. This mechanism facilitates real time adaptation to target and background variations, thereby improving tracking accuracy and robustness. Ex-tensive experiments on LSOTB-TIR, PTB-TIR, VOT-TIR2015, and VOT-TIR2017 benchmarks demonstrate that RAMCT outperforms other state-of-the-art trackers in terms of accuracy and robustness.